Studio & Production Kilns

The largest one you can reliably fill on your normal schedule, and no larger. A kiln costs roughly the same in power whether it is full or half full, so the cost per pot falls steeply with how well you pack it.

If you are firing weekly, size for a week's work. If you are firing fortnightly and would rather fire weekly, size down and fire more often, because that shortens your turnaround as well.

Two smaller kilns cost more per cubic foot and take more floor space and more circuits. What they buy you is resilience and flexibility: you can bisque in one while glazing in the other, and an element failure does not stop the studio.

For a business where downtime costs money, that second kiln is insurance rather than extravagance. For a single potter, one well-sized kiln is almost always the better buy.

It compares chambers rather than price tags, which is the only fair comparison once you are firing for money. On this page it runs from about $362 per cubic foot for an Evenheat RM II 2929 up to about $1,403 for an Olympic FL4.5E.

It is not the whole story. A cone 8 kiln will always look cheaper per cubic foot than a cone 10 one, and a front loader will always look expensive, because you are buying loading ergonomics and insulation as well as space. Compare within a bracket, not across all of them.

Because a ten cubic foot kiln in one piece is very difficult to get into a building. Olympic's HE range is stackable: the rings separate, so a large kiln comes through a normal doorway and can be carried by two people rather than craned.

It also helps later. A damaged section can be replaced without replacing the kiln, and the kiln can be moved if the studio does. Evenheat's RM II range is one-piece, which is simpler but less forgiving about access.

More often than a hobby studio, and the driver is firing temperature rather than firing count. Every trip to the top of a kiln's range costs more element life than a bisque firing does.

The practical consequences for a production studio are to keep a spare set on the shelf, to not fire hotter than the work needs, and to treat element replacement as a scheduled maintenance item rather than an emergency.

More than most studios expect. A 7 cubic foot Olympic 2327HE draws 47 amps and wants a 60 amp breaker. A 10 cubic foot 2827HE draws 56 and wants 70. An Evenheat RM II 2929 draws 56 amps at 13,440 watts.

At this level the binding constraint is usually the total service rather than the breaker. Get an electrician to do a load calculation on your panel before you choose the kiln. See the 240V range sorted by breaker size.

It is worth costing out. Front loaders let you slide shelves in at waist height instead of reaching down into a chamber, which matters a great deal when several people load every day and when some of them cannot lean into a deep kiln.

They also carry far heavier insulation. The Olympic FL series runs 4.5 inches of brick plus an inch of fiber against 2.5 to 3 inches on a typical top loader. You pay for both in money and floor space. See the front-loading range.

Take the kiln's wattage, multiply by the hours of the firing, and multiply by your rate per kilowatt hour. An Evenheat RM II 1822 is 7,200 watts, so 7.2 kilowatts at full output.

The real number lands below that, because elements cycle rather than running flat out. Then divide by the number of saleable pieces in the load, which is the figure that actually matters and the one that rewards packing the kiln properly.

By freight, and the weights are serious: an Evenheat RM II 2929 is 320 pounds and an Olympic FL12E is 1,165. Deliveries include curbside delivery, appointment scheduling, tracking and liftgate service where required.

Curbside means the curb, so plan the route from there into the studio, including door widths and floor loading, before the truck arrives. This is where a sectional kiln earns its keep. Shipping is calculated at checkout. See our shipping page.

Performing the manufacturer's recommended initial test firing will not by itself void a return, as long as the other conditions in our policy are met.

Read the full terms, including timeframes and condition requirements, on our returns page.